Free Adventure Construction Kit

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This picture shows independent, trembling lights. The fireplace is
turned on, whereas the lamp is turned
off. The light of the fireplace is trembling (of course you
cannot see that from a still picture).

The lamp is now turned on. The lamp light is merging
with the light of the fireplace. Notice the difference in the shadows
of the armchairs, table, and the wall. Also, if the picture were
animated, you would notice that the lamp light is trembling with a
different pattern.

This picture shows containers, drawers and zoomable objects (the
bottle). You can have containers inside containers. You can also drag
from one container to another. Objects in containers can overlap, and
can hide each other; so puzzles where you have to browse a chest or
drawer become possible.

The player is carrying a lit torch, which has a circular halo. The
halo fades smoothly, and moves together with the player. Outside the
halo, the moon is illuminating the location. The moonlight is
trembling too.

21 may 2005. There are major changes in CVS. Some highlights:
the inventory is now like Ultima 7 (overlapping objects, backpacks);
you can browse drawers and chest with direct manipulation, again like
Ultima 7; implemented movable torches which generate halos;
implemented smooth transition from day to night; implemented discourse
topics, with which you can speak to characters; implemented zoomable
objects, such as the bottle you see in the screenshot.

Due to those changes, the latest release is completely obsolete.

30 apr 2005: FACK 0.4 released. This is an early release to
allow people to try the test game. See the download page.

Remember, you walk with the right mouse button, and you switch
player with the space bar.

Also keep in mind that there is no graphic editor yet: you can only
use FACK as a C++ library.

29 apr 2005. The FACK library is almost usable to create
games. There is already a test game in CVS that you can try. See the
screenshot in this page. However, the library is not yet API-stable,
and lacks some fundamental functionality like game saves, music and
sound.

The editor is still totally absent but, if you know C++, you can
already produce a test game with FACK.

30 nov 2004: website created.

About FACK

Welcome to the home page of FACK, the Free Adventure
Construction Kit. FACK is a cross-platform engine and editor to
create 2D adventure games (think Monkey 2, Indy 4, or SIERRA).

The most notable features of FACK are:

FACK is free
software (which means more than simply "open-source"). It is
released under the GPL license. (If you want me to add another
license, you can ask me.)

FACK has dynamic lighting capabilities, which make your
scenes warmer, more immersive, and more credible than any 2D adventure
ever made. With this technique, the color of each pixel is computed
separately, and dynamically at each frame, by merging the active light
sources together. Consequences of this approach are: 1. the lights
tremble to simulate the typical effect of artificial lights,
such as a candle or a fireplace. 2. the lights can be turned
on and off independently. 3. You can have smooth transitions
from day to night. 4. you can carry torches, which generate
halos that tremble and blend smoothly with the background.

FACK features an innovative user interface, verb-based,
whose purpose is to prevent "meta-reasoning". More info here.

There is a system that allows direct manipulation inside your
inventory, chest and drawers. This is like Ultima 7: objects in
containers can overlap and can be manipulated directly, by dragging
them. You can drag objects within and across containers. This is more
immersive and allows puzzles based on direct searching inside
chests/drawers.

FACK is designed for multicharacter games: you can control many
characters at once (e.g. Maniac Mansion, Zak mcKracken). Characters
have separate inventories. In the pictures, the button in the lower
right corner cycles the active player.

FACK has special code to allow players to sit on chairs and lie in
bed, like Ultima 7.